Hometown Hero

by Dani Collins

  Since when did he want to, he wondered?

  Right. There was the answer to that one. Brunette hair and a green and yellow dress fluttered in the breeze. Jagged mountains and blue sky and puffy white clouds provided a stunning backdrop as the fabric of her dress pressed to her knock-out shape.

  Skye was turning into his own personal bottle and he didn’t know how he was going to give her up.

  It took her a while to reach him, circling the field on tip-toed heels to where he was working with the team’s quarterback, showing him how to work his shoulder to keep it supple, but build power for chucking.

  He lost the plot, barely able to take his eyes off her, liking everything about the way she moved.

  “Go run a few laps,” he told the kid as she arrived, then greeted her when the boy was out of earshot. “Ms. Wolcott. This is a nice surprise. Did you come all the way out here to see me?”

  “I did. And I brought the flimsiest of excuses I could find.” She handed him the envelope addressed to the Parent Or Guardian Of Flynn Goodwin. “No use wasting a stamp when you’re right here. It’s the finalized game schedule.”

  “Aren’t you conscientious of taxpayer money.” Through her bra and the light weight of her dress, he could just make out the way the breeze had hardened her nipples. Or maybe she was reacting to him. That was a heady thought.

  “Not really, or I would have brought everyone’s. Now quit looking at me like that because Tommy Reid has his camera on us.”

  He turned his head and saw the boy aiming his mobile phone at them. “Hey! Knucklehead! What did coach say about phones on the field? Bring it,” he ordered, waving the kid in.

  Tom’s shoulders sagged as he ran the phone to Chase.

  “Now apologize to Ms. Wolcott. I’m not going to say what kind of move that was, but you and I both know. That was rude, dude.”

  Tom looked between them, confused. “You mean Mrs. Baynard?”

  Chase sent her a faintly exasperated look.

  She shrugged. “I married out of high school. It’s the name everyone knows. I didn’t see the point in changing it.”

  “Just apologize and get back out there,” Chase grumbled, pocketing the phone. When the kid was gone, he said to Skye, “Listen, I got a call this morning. I have to fly to L.A. next week, see the team doctor and have a few tests.”

  “Oh.” Her cheerful expression faded to somber. “Are you coming back?”

  “Yeah. I think so.” Pretty sure. He tucked his hands in his back pockets, watching the boys and listening to the calls from the quarterback, brooding. He glanced back to try to interpret her frown.

  “But you’re not leaving until next week,” she said with an attempt at optimism.

  “Yeah, but we have that game in Bozeman this weekend,” he reminded. Whose dumb idea had it been to sign on as assistant coach slash chaperone and tie up all his time?

  “I’ve got the girls this weekend anyway,” she murmured, gaze clouded and focusing on the middle distance.

  “You want to come?” he asked, aware it had been in the back of his mind since he’d finished his call.

  “To Bozeman?” she asked, startled and dubious.

  “L.A.”

  “Oh.” If anything, she looked even more askance.

  That annoyed him. It couldn’t be that big a stretch for her to imagine he’d want her to come with him, could it?

  Mitch’s piercing whistle made them both look. Max called for the boys to break for water and Skye took a shaky breath. “I’ll, um, think about it,” she said, brow still gathered as she waved at the coaches and headed back into the school.

  Ten minutes later, the boys were running suicides. Mitch was on one side of him, Max on the other, arms folded, drill sergeant expression firmly in place.

  “So you two kissed and made up?” Mitch said.

  “Beg your pardon?” Chase returned, hearing the flick of danger in his tone. Damn. That was probably more revealing than he’d needed it to be, especially with Mitch standing right there, but seriously.

  Max’s brows shot up. He eyed Chase like he read a lot more in his expression than Chase’s frozen features meant to convey.

  They all looked straight ahead again, but Chase could sense Mitch’s interest. The guy was new to Marietta, young but confident enough to earn the boys’ respect. Keen. In good shape. It was pretty easy to imagine he’d make a play for Skye if she showed an inkling of interest. That made Chase hate the guy a little bit, for moving to Marietta with what looked like a desire to stay.

  He sent a disgruntled glare in Mitch’s direction.

  Mitch lifted his hands in a not gonna touch it gesture and took a few steps up the field, clapping his palms and shouting encouragement as the boys started to flag.

  “Hmph,” Max snorted, then he offered a muted, “Uh-huh,” under his breath.

  Chase said nothing, but every hair on his body was primed for a wrong signal from Max, fairly daring him to make something of it. Women could say men were lousy communicators, but they got messages across just fine with grunts and sneers.

  “And then what happens?” Max asked after the boys had trampled the grass in front of them again and Mitch was out of earshot. “When you leave?”

  “I’m working on it,” Chase snarled. You didn’t throw away a career like his, but you didn’t throw away a woman like Skye without giving things an honest shot either. What if they really had something?

  And yet, it was so new, what did he know? Maybe her dismayed reaction had been a signal that things were dying out on her side.

  They didn’t have a chance to talk it out properly until he was turning steaks on her grill on Tuesday. The weather had turn gray and drizzly so she was inside baking the potatoes in the oven and tossing a salad while he tried not to demand answers when she seemed to have retreated to a remote headspace.

  He made himself wait until they sat down at her dining room table, a candle lending warmth to the atmosphere when rain was gusting against the windows and the air felt heavy and damp.

  “I guess it’s short notice to put in for time off,” he said as an opener.

  “I have some time I could use,” she murmured, pushing green flecks of onion deeper into the melted butter pooling in her baked potato.

  “But you don’t want to,” he surmised.

  “That’s not it. It’s just… Chase, I don’t do that sort of thing. Run to L.A. mid-week for a couple of days. I’m not saying I don’t travel. We honeymooned in Mexico and did the Keys one year because it was on our bucket list. And Vegas, of course, which was a four-day weekend, but…” She shrugged.

  “Is it the cost? I intend to buy your ticket. You’re my guest.”

  “I can afford my own ticket,” she rushed to assure. “No, I’m talking about what kind of person I am. It’s the trunk of the elephant we’re not acknowledging. You don’t live here and I do. I can go to L.A. with you, but in a couple of weeks you’ll be gone for good. I’m not saying I want more. I realize this is just this.” She drew a circle over the space between their plates. “I’m not trying to pressure you. It’s the opposite. I don’t want to get too serious when…” She shrugged. “I already know it’s going to hurt when you leave.”

  “And you won’t even consider coming with me when I do.”

  He wasn’t entirely comfortable saying that and the way she paled told him how surprised she was that he had.

  He sat back and rubbed his hands on his thighs. “I realize that’s fast. And I’m not saying it would turn into something permanent, but right now I can’t see walking away in a few days and writing this off as a nice little holiday romance. I see potential, Skye. Don’t you?”

  Her heart was hammering her throat, making breathing nearly impossible. She took a sip of wine, but her head was already swimming. In some ways, everything he was saying was a dream come true, but she knew who she was and he apparently didn’t realize who he was.

  “Chase, I don’t have grand goals like you. I had o
ne dream growing up: to marry a nice man who wanted kids and raise them here in Marietta. I love it. It’s why I sank my claws into the school secretary job and refuse to let it go. I know I could have gone to college and become an accountant or something, but when I finally do have a family, I want summers and Christmas break off with my kids. I have really great friends here who stuck by me through a really crummy break up. I want to be here for them if and when they need me. My family is here. This is my home.” She waved, indicating the house. “I’m not made to live large and back up someone of your caliber.”

  “Okay, stop. If you think you’d be homesick, fine. I’ll accept that, but do you hear how you’re limiting yourself? If I had told myself all those years that I wasn’t the right stuff to be a professional athlete because of where and how I grew up, I would have proved myself right and I’d still be at the feed store. I’m not going to sit here and listen to you tell me you can’t date a professional athlete because you’re only a school secretary. First of all, school secretaries are pretty freaking exciting. I can speak from experience on that one. And you are dating a professional athlete. It’s your jam. Pretending it’s not is like living Terry’s kind of lie.”

  She sat taller. “It’s my jam?”

  He groaned. “It just came out. You hang around all day with those kids and their lingo rubs off. You know what I mean.” His pained frown grew serious, impatient even. “But come on, Skye. We have time to work out the long term stuff if you’ll at least try a road trip before you write us off.”

  “It just seems like a really big step when…” She eyed him, working up her nerve. “Would you ever consider making Marietta your home again?” she asked in a small voice, quickly stuffing a bite into her mouth, sure she knew the answer and it wouldn’t be good.

  He sighed and looked out at the blustery day, not one of the nicest here by far. His lowered brows weren’t encouraging. “I don’t usually come back for more than a day or two and it was usually for Flynn, but Dad will always be here—which is not why I’m talking about us getting more serious,” he said firmly, cutting off any suspicions she might have before they grew. “I’m not looking for a babysitter for him or anything. Cindy seems to want that job and she can keep it.”

  She watched him comb his fingers through his hair.

  “But most of the guys keep their wives in a major center, so the travel isn’t too bad. It wouldn’t be very practical to live here, but I won’t say no outright.” He gave her another impactful look, this one letting her know he viewed himself as considerably more open-minded than she was.

  She set her chin, still stinging from his calling her a closet self-limiter.

  “If all goes well with my shoulder and nothing else happens, I could be playing another ten years at least. After I retire, I was aiming to go into coaching.”

  “Which would be more of the same travel and everything.”

  “That isn’t written in stone, but yeah, it could be.”

  “You don’t want to go back to school?”

  “For interior design?”

  She slitted her eyes, telling him he wasn’t funny.

  His mouth quirked briefly, then he said, “I’ve thought about it a lot, but I’ve never been sure what to take. I like sciences. Maybe I could get my teaching diploma. Work at the high school with you. Summers and Christmas off.”

  Feeling mocked for her low aspirations, she asked the deal breaker. “Do you want kids?” She could barely get the words out. Her chest felt too tight.

  “Honestly?” His tone said she didn’t really want his answer. “Given my childhood, kids were not something I pictured for myself. But I could see it now.” The timbre of his voice went through her to her bones, lifting her hot eyes. She found him waiting for her, his expression incredibly tender. Everything in her stopped, then started up at double speed.

  “I’d be waiting again,” she blurted. “Waiting for you to finish playing, waiting for us to move back here, waiting…”

  He reached across and gently crushed her hand. “Would you open your pretty eyes and look at us? I don’t see either of us dragging our feet very long with anything.”

  She smiled through lips she was clamping so they wouldn’t tremble. Maybe he wasn’t declaring love, but it was quite the declaration of honorable intention.

  Yes, he looked very intent. All that wonderful focus she used to admire in him was narrowed onto her right now and it was terrifying yet exhilarating.

  “Is this really how your mind works? Even when you were hitting a tee-ball in little league, you were already convinced you’d win the World Series one day?”

  “You can’t find a place that isn’t on your map. Did you go into a barrel race planning to lose?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t go into your next relationship planning to fail, either,” he said, releasing her to pick up his steak knife. “Play to win.”

  Chapter Eight

  ‡

  Maybe the real difference between her and Chase, Skye thought as she wheeled her horse after a calf, was that she rarely tried anything she didn’t know she had a good chance of winning. Barrel-racing had been a strong event for her, but she could have competed in calf-roping. She knew how to do it. Others had been better though, so she’d stood back from those contests.

  Dropping to the mucky ground, she heeled the calf and used her knee on his neck to hold him long enough to get the syringe from her vest and jab it into his unhappy hide. Stan wasn’t a fan of giving shots without cause, but this critter had an infection that was being stubborn. Stan had told her to keep an eye out for him while she was on her Sunday ride and now she’d got him. Job done.

  Satisfied, she released the calf and started trotting back to the house, whimsically thinking that the black SUV picking its way down the potholed drive looked like Chase’s, but he was in Boze—

  The truck stopped, the door opened, and his tall frame stood on the running board. He waved at her.

  She gave an excited kick and Pancake broke into a gallop. She crouched low over his neck as he ate up the quarter mile.

  Slowing him as they neared the fence and floating on his cantering gait, she saw Chase grinning at her. “Damn, woman. I thought you were going to jump right over us.”

  “Might have if we were just starting out, but we’ve been riding for hours. We’re both done in.” She patted the horse’s neck, breathless as she asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “Flynn and I drove the Patterson twins home. Their mom said yours had called over looking for some attachment for her sewing machine. She asked if I’d mind dropping it on my way back to town.”

  “She’s got the girls making spirit flags in the team colors for the pep rally. It’s what they did back in the day, when Mom was in Home Ec.” She let him see her bemusement over that one. Not the support part, but Home Economics? Good Lord, women had come a long way. “You’re a good sport to play courier,” she added, well aware that to ranching folk this distance off the main road wasn’t out of the way, but it could sound like a funny request to townies. Ducking to catch Flynn’s eye inside the SUV, she greeted him. “You’re back early from the game. Don’t tell me you lost. I’ll have to tell Mom to make black arm bands instead.”

  “Other team couldn’t field enough players, had to forfeit,” he said, looking at her curiously.

  “Easy win, but we’ll take it, right? Listen, I’ll meet you guys at the house, otherwise I really will have to jump the fence.” She nodded at the fence line to the barn.

  Chase followed her look. “I’ll walk with you. Flynn can drive up to the house. Mind Flynn?”

  “What? But—” As Chase left the keys on the seat and stepped away from the SUV, Flynn grumbled a dubious, “I…guess.” He slid out of the passenger side and came around the back of the vehicle to cast a confused glance between Skye as she dismounted and Chase as he stood from climbing through the fence. “Do I, like, give the thing to Mrs. Wolcott or…?”

  “J
ust knock on the screen at the back. She’ll be in the kitchen. Might even be in the garden,” Skye assured him.

  “Drive slow,” Chase reminded. “Watch for the kids.”

  “Oh, and would you please tell Coralee, she’s the older one, that I’m in the barn? She wanted to help me brush down Pancake. Thanks, Flynn.”

  With a confused shake of his head, Flynn climbed into the driver’s seat and crawled down the rest of the winding drive.

  “I thought you might be here. That’s why I didn’t mind coming by. Do you mind?” Chase asked, pacing on her left while she held Pancake’s reins in her right hand.

  “No.” She couldn’t help her smile, even though she felt oddly shy. They might have made love on Tuesday, and flirted at the gym on Wednesday, and taken their time together on Thursday while Flynn did a four-hour shift at the restaurant, but they’d both been tied up all weekend, barely able to text. She had messaged him Friday afternoon when her time off had been approved and he’d sent her a smiley face and a heart in return, but this was their first face to face since then.

  Galloping hoofbeats thundered from a distance, growing louder. Stan and Holly crested the south hillock, returning from their own Sunday ride, not that Skye had ever had the lack of class to speculate on what kind of ‘ride’ it was.

  They all met at the barn, Coralee leading a lost-looking Flynn into their midst.

  “Here,” Flynn said to Chase, handing over the keys with a significant jangle. “I parked right out there.” We can go now, his tone said.

  “I want to say hello to Stan. It’s been a while,” Chase said, stepping forward as Stan dismounted and held out his hand to shake. Chase didn’t flinch from Stan’s dirty palm or the smell of the barn or the sweat on humans and horses.

  “Indeed it has,” Stan agreed, as welcoming as any Wolcott to a guest on the ranch, but there was a hint of reserve. “No need to ask what you’ve been up to since graduation,” he added, but his tone held an inquisitive, But what are you doing here?

  “Or you,” Chase said with an indulgent nod at Coralee where she carefully set out grooming tools on the bench beside Pancake’s stall. “You know my brother, Flynn?” Chase introduced.